Public Defender Seeks Release
Of U.S.-Born Man Seized in War

By

Jess Bravin Staff Reporter of The Wall Street Journal

Updated May 15, 2002 1:16 p.m. ET

Arguing that it is unconstitutional to lock up a U.S. citizen without charging him with a crime, a federal public defender has asked a court to free a Louisiana-born man captured in Afghanistan alongside Taliban and al Qaeda fighters and now held in a U.S. military jail.

Yaser Esam Hamdi, 21 years old, had been jailed at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, until last month, when authorities concluded that his birth on...